The thing about Mega Evolution is that it not only makes strong Pokemon even stronger, it also takes relatively weak Pokemon and turns them into formidable opponents. Our next post talks about one such relatively weak yet classic Pokemon that has been given new life thanks to the power of Mega Evolution.
This is Mega Factor!
I never truly became a fan of the Pokemon franchise until after I saw the first few episodes of the anime, back when Ash had just started his journey with Pikachu and the show actually looked like it might be going somewhere. One of my favorite episodes out of that first set was the one where Ash’s Metapod evolved into Butterfree, and one of the reasons that episode is a favorite of mine is because it featured one of the Pokemon that really made me want to try the original games. The Pokemon I’m talking about is one of the most common Bug Pokemon of the Kanto and Johto Regions, Beedrill.
I instantly became a huge fan of Beedrill when I first saw its design. It had those cool lances on its arms, and I liked the way its eyes flashed red when it was about to attack an enemy. Even the design of Beedrill’s pre-evolved form, Kukuna is pretty cool. Anyway, Beedrill is one of the games’ “starter bug” Pokemon, along with the Butterfree evolution line and a few other bugs like Wurmple. These bugs are fast-evolving Pokemon designed to give rookie trainers a crash course in evolution. They’re all very easy to obtain and evolve in almost no time at all.
Sadly, beyond teaching new trainers about Pokemon evolution, Beedrill hasn’t been very good for much of anything else in the games. That’s because Beedrill’s pitiful stats make it practically useless in competitive battles. As cool looking as this Pokemon is, it can be easily knocked out as soon as it emerges from its pokeball due to poor stats and a fairly low amount of HP, and there are tons of Pokemon out there that can outclass this bug when it comes to offense. I’m sure that most players have tended to replace Beedrill on their teams after they get past the first two or three gyms. Since the advent of OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire though, the power of Mega Evolution has blessed Beedrill with powers that finally make it a force to be reckoned with.
Normal Evolution: Before we start talking about Beedrill’s new Mega Evolved form, I think we should first briefly talk about its natural evolution. Our dear bug starts out its life as the larval Pokemon known as Weedle. Weedle are among the weakest Pokemon out there, unable to learn any TM or HM attacks or inherit any attacks from their parents (yet in some games, they’re able to learn Electro Web for some reason). The only offensive attack Weedle are able to use from the beginning is Poison Sting, which does at least give it an advantage over its counterpart, Caterpie. At level seven, Weedle enters its pupa stage and becomes Kukuna, at which points it learns the move Harden. Finally at level ten, Kukuna evolves into Beedril and becomes able to learn some decent attacks.
Mega Evolution: I have to say the people who made the games did an awesome job with Mega Beedrill’s design. After going through Mega Evolution, Beedrill takes on a more mechanical appearance, which really does fit this Pokemon beautifully. It looks like something that could be deployed by the military. In addition to gaining a cooler appearance, Beedrill’s Mega Evolution boosts its speed and physical attack stat to incredibly high levels at the cost of reducing its special attack stat; but since Beedrill never truly made use of its special attack stat, this is no big loss. Despite the amazing boost to Beedrill’s speed and attack power though, its defense stats and HP in this form are still very low compared to other Pokemon. In other words, it seems to have the same defensive strength as tissue paper. Of course since Mega Beedrill seems to be designed to hit things very fast and very hard, its weak defenses and stamina may not be too big of an issue in most cases.
I should probably also mention that Beedrill gains a different ability upon Mega Evolving called Adaptability. This ability gives more power to attacks that are of the same type as the Pokemon using them. In Mega Beedrill’s case, Adaptability gives a boost to all of the Poison and Bug-Type moves that it can use. Factor this ability in with Beedrill’s high attack power in this form, and the bottom line is this Pokemon can inflict some serious damage. It’s also pretty appropriate for Mega Beedrill to have a power called Adaptability, considering its more mechanical appearance.
Signature Move: Most people may not realize this, but Beedrill is one of the very first Pokemon to have a signature move. The move I speak of is a little attack called Twin Needle. With this attack, Beedrill strikes the opponent twice with the lances on the end of its arms as a sort of one-two punch. This move also has a slight chance of poisoning the opponent. In other words, Twin Needle is basically the Pokemon version of a bee sting. Of course these days, I think there are at least one or two other Pokemon capable of learning Twin Needle, so it’s not as much as a “signature move” as it used to be. Plus like Beedrill itself, Twin Needle is outclassed by a lot of other Bug and Poison-Type moves out there, like X-Scissor and Poison Jab.
That pretty much covers it for this week’s post. Next week, I’ll be covering the Mega Evolutions of yet another classic Pokemon from the first generation games.
